Paul Scholes on Cristiano Ronaldo's Role in Portugal's World Cup Team
Paul Scholes believes Cristiano Ronaldo has turned into a tactical problem for Portugal, arguing that a 41-year-old should not be leading the line at a World Cup.
Ronaldo, who has now matched Lionel Messi’s feat of appearing at six different World Cups, captained Portugal in their opening group game against DR Congo in Houston on Wednesday. The occasion was historic. His performance was anything but.
A flat night for Portugal’s captain
Joao Neves gave Portugal the perfect platform with a sixth-minute strike, and for long spells Roberto Martinez’s side toyed with their opponents. They had the ball, they had territory, they had control.
They did not have a cutting edge.
Against the run of play, Newcastle forward Yoane Wissa punished them with an equaliser just before half-time. From there, Portugal huffed, probed, and circled the box, but never truly bared their teeth. The game drifted to a 1-1 draw, the sense of a missed opportunity hanging over a side billed as one of the tournament’s heavyweights.
Ronaldo’s numbers told their own story. No chances created. No shots. No successful dribbles. No duels won. For a player who has built a career on bending games to his will, it was a brutally quiet first half and an anonymous night overall.
Yet Martinez refused to hook his captain. As fresh legs arrived — Pedro Neto, Vitinha, Bernardo Silva, Tomas Araujo, Nuno Mendes — Ronaldo stayed on, a fixed point in an attack that never quite clicked.
Scholes: “He has to be a last-15-minutes player”
Watching from afar, Scholes did not hide his concern. Speaking on The Good, The Bad & The Football podcast, the former England and Manchester United midfielder revealed he had already raised the issue directly with Martinez.
“I once had a conversation with Roberto Martinez off-camera during a Stick to Football session, where I inquired, ‘Is he a problem for you?’, as I feel he is somewhat of a concern,” Scholes said.
For Scholes, age is the decisive factor.
“At 41 years of age… I believe there is only one position on the field where a player of that age should be starting, and that is as a goalkeeper, in my opinion.
“Now look, he is going to score goals and he’s in a team that have a lot of possession, but once there’s a game where it has to be transition… and there will be games like that. His movement at 41 years of age…”
The issue, in Scholes’ eyes, is not Ronaldo’s finishing but everything that comes before it: the pressing, the runs in behind, the constant physical toll of leading the line in modern international football.
Scholes, who shared a dressing room with Ronaldo for six years at Old Trafford, believes Martinez is trapped between sentiment, status and cold tactical reality.
“I feel sorry for Martinez,” he admitted, arguing that Ronaldo’s role should now be sharply reduced. “For me, he has to be a player for the last 15 minutes. For a 40 or 41-year-old to be playing centre-forward, I just don’t get it.
“You might get away with it at centre-half, you might do in a team that keeps the ball and you probably get away with it as a goalkeeper, but as a centre-forward at 41… it’s not right.”
A legend’s pride, a manager’s dilemma
Portugal’s problem, Scholes pointed out, is that they do not have an undisputed, elite No. 9 to make the decision easier.
“The trouble with Portugal is they haven’t really got an outstanding centre-forward anyway, have they? You’ve got to have somebody who runs,” he said.
That vacuum keeps the door open for Ronaldo, whose reputation and record remain immense. Martinez has leaned into that, publicly backing his captain as “the best goalscorer in the world”. Scholes suspects the coach’s private calculations look very different.
“I feel sorry for Martinez because he’s trying to embrace it and he’s saying, ‘No, I’ve got the best goalscorer in the world’, but deep down he must know that’s hurting his team.”
Pride complicates everything. Scholes painted a vivid picture of how Ronaldo will have viewed the opening round of games, with Lionel Messi hitting a hat-trick and Kylian Mbappe scoring twice.
“Cristiano will be so pissed off because Lionel Messi got a hat-trick, Kylian Mbappe got two… it will be killing him,” Scholes said.
The comparison with Luka Modric, still operating in central midfield for Croatia at 40, sharpened his point. Modric’s game has always been about rhythm and passing angles; Ronaldo’s has been about explosiveness and penalty-box dominance. One can be dialled down with age. The other is harder to dilute.
Portugal remain one of the tournament favourites, bracketed with France, Spain, England and reigning champions Argentina. The squad is deep, gifted and hungry. The question that now hangs over their campaign is brutally simple: can Martinez afford to keep building his attack around a 41-year-old icon, or does he dare to turn that icon into a weapon from the bench?
